Five ways to survive your daily commute

Commuting sucks. It costs up to 14% of your annual salary, increases stress levels and generally saps all energy and goodwill towards humanity. It forces you to witness your fellow wage slaves day in, day out; listen to their music, read their text messages, smell their armpits. Now, according to a recent study, it has been calculated that the daily commute uses up more than 18 months of your life, with an average of 13,870 hours spent getting to and from work – to the place that pays you the money you need in order to get there. Beckettian, or what? If commuting were a place, it would be at the end of the Circle line.

On the other hand, the daily commute is time off from life. An 18-month holiday, if you like, albeit one spent on a moving vehicle. Commuting affords the opportunity to do your own weird thing without shame, judgment, or – as long as you keep the volume down – anyone else even knowing. So actually, commuting rocks. It’s less Waiting for Godot and more Brief Encounter. Here’s why …

1. Read

In 13,780 hours you can read every single book on your literary bucket list. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall novels. The whole of Dickens. The party manifestos. Every free newspaper that lands on your seat. Or you can just carry a book in your bag and refresh your Twitter feed every six seconds… The decision is yours.

2. Fall in love

It didn’t just happen in Brief Encounter. There was that BBC drama starring David Morrissey and Sheridan Smith on the 7.39 to Waterloo, too. And, erm, James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful is about a pash on a subway. Basically, you can cultivate a St Pancras-sized crush in 13,780 hours. Or start a messy, doomed affair. At the very least, you can speed up your journey by playing “who would I do on this carriage/bus/in this traffic jam?”

3. Ignore people you know

So you’ve been commuting for 20 years and never looked a soul in the eye, let alone seen someone you would snog in the toilet. Chin up. One of the best rules of commuting is that you also get to ignore people you know and love. Sit opposite your ex-boss and get off on the frisson that comes with knowing you both know that you know, but are both pretending you don’t. Amazing.

4. Leave the house

Record numbers of people may be working from home these days – 13.9% of the workforce at the last count – but that doesn’t mean they are happier, less anxious, or even dressed. Commuters get to leave the place where they eat, shit, and sleep five days a week. What are you complaining about?

5. Look out of the window

Many forget that “looking out of the window” is the mindful meditation of commuting. It makes the journey go faster, reduces your stress levels, and induces a uniquely British feeling of nostalgia tinged with melancholy. Otherwise known as something to do when the Wi-Fi stops working.